move against his enemies. Immediately, he launched offensives against the Sicilian holdings in Albania, and against John Doukas in Thessaly. The battle For the campaign against Thessaly (the date is uncertain, most recent scholars favour 1272/3 or 1274/5), Michael assembled a huge force, mostly mercenaries, which contemporary sources put, certainly with considerable exaggeration, at 30,000 (Pachymeres speaks of 40,000 men, including the naval forces). These were placed under his own brother, the despotes John Palaiologos, and the general Alexios Kaballarios. This force was sent against Thessaly, and was to be aided by the Byzantine navy under the protostrator Alexios Doukas Philanthropenos, who was to attack the Latin principalities and prevent them from aiding John Doukas. Doukas was caught completely by surprise by the rapid advance of the imperial forces, and was bottled up with few men in his capital, Neopatras, which the Byzantines proceeded to lay siege to. Doukas, however, resorted to a ruse: he climbed down the walls of the fortress with a rope and, disguised as a groom, he managed to cross the Byzantine leaguer. After three days, he reached Thebes, where he requested the aid of John I de la Roche (), the Duke of Athens. The two rulers concluded a treaty of alliance, by which John de la Roche's brother and heir, William, would marry John Doukas's daughter Helena and receive the fortresses of Gravia, Siderokastron, Gardiki, and Zetouni as her dowry. In return, de la Roche gave Doukas 300 or 500 horsemen (depending on the source) with whom he returned quickly to Neopatras. The Byzantine force there had been considerably weakened, with several detachments sent off to capture other forts or plunder the region, and was furthermore unwieldy and not very cohesive, given the many races that served in it. According to the Venetian historian Marino Sanudo, when John Doukas and John de la Roche climbed a height and saw the huge Byzantine encampment, de la Roche uttered, in Greek, a phrase from Herodotus: "there are a lot of people here, but few men." Indeed, the Byzantine troops panicked under the sudden attack of the smaller but disciplined Latin force, and broke completely when a Cuman contingent abruptly switched sides. Despite John Palaiologos's attempts to rally his forces, they fled and scattered. Aftermath At the news of this success, the Latins became emboldened and assembled a fleet to attack the Byzantine fleet, which was anchored